


Of Angels and Coffee

by slightly_ajar



Series: Domesticities [6]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Awkward Conversations, families are complicated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-16 05:28:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18685063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slightly_ajar/pseuds/slightly_ajar
Summary: Little things often have just as much meaning as the big things.  The answer to ‘how to you take your coffee?’ can be just as important as ‘why did you leave?’Mac and James meet in the break room.Their conversations were often stilted, both of them hesitant and uneasy. The ground between them was uncharted and littered with pitfalls and hazards that could trigger an explosion if touched.Part of my Domesticities series of one shots based around little domestic moments.





	Of Angels and Coffee

_…generate a massive amount of torque…_

“Angus.”

_…especially once I score the axels to give it more surface area on each tire…_

“Angus?”

_...imagine the angular velocity when it’s not all spread out over one differential…_

Angus!” 

Mac blinked, snapping his attention away from the schematics in his mind and back to his surroundings. His father stood watching him with a mug in one hand and a smile of fond amusement on his face. The break room was empty except for the two of them, other Phoenix agents and technicians were busy hacking corrupt business leader’s accounts, honing their hand to hand combat skills or, in Bozer’s case, sewing a tiny Geiger counter into the cuff of Riley’s jacket. Jack was unhappy about her imminent proximity to radioactivity, loudly voicing his concerns about the possibility of her returning from her mission with the ability to glow in the dark. Matty had been doing her best to reassure him that Riley would be fine but Jack still had doubts. Mac could see Matty’s patience being replaced by frustration and had removed himself from the blast radius of her temper by backing away muttering something about coffee. 

“Are you back with us?” 

“Yeah, I was in the lab working on a Think Tank project.” Mac gestured over his shoulder with his thumb. “We haven’t produced anything for a while so Matty asked if I could come up with a ‘smart science do-hickey’,” he made air quotes with his fingers, “I was refining plans in my head.” 

“Ah!” James’ eyes brightened, “R and D! You’re having more fun than me, I’m signing off intel reports. But that’s one of the pitfalls of being the boss, you spend more time getting ink on your fingers than grease under your fingernails.” 

Mac pulled his lips into a smile he hoped looked more natural than it felt. “I know. I mean I guess. I don’t, you know… _know_.”

They lapsed into silence. 

Mac couldn’t think of anything to say that didn’t sound like an awkward attempt to fill the emptiness that occurs in conversations between people who aren’t comfortable together. 

He and his father were speaking to each other after fifteen years of separation but they hadn’t yet reached the level of familiarity where they could just _talk_. About the minutia of their lives, that funny thing that happened last month or that weird show on Netflix with the actor who was popular in the 80’s. 

Their conversations were often stilted, both of them hesitant and uneasy. The ground between them was uncharted and littered with pitfalls and hazards that could trigger an explosion if touched. They were both uncertain of how to pick their way through the uneven no man’s land of subjects that were safe for them to discuss while avoiding hidden dangers and no go areas. Mac wanted answers but he didn’t know how to ask ‘How often did you think about me? Did you even miss me? If I hadn’t found you would you have ever come for me?’ without saying, well, exactly that. The questions always sounded like the pleas of a small child no matter how he thought about wording them. In spite of everything he’d done as he’d grown into a man - going to MIT, joining the army, EOD training, serving in a warzone - he could still feel the imprint of the child waiting for his daddy to come home on his heart. Sometimes when he was with his father Mac could feel him, the little boy who wanted to know _why_ , curled inside his chest. 

“Un ange passe.” James said. 

“Sorry?” 

“An angel is passing, it’s…”

“French.” 

“Right,” James nodded, “They say it in France when there’s a lull in a conversation. An angel is passing overhead and everyone has fallen quiet. I used to be friends with a professor who was French, he taught me a lot about the language.” 

“I know, I met him when I was looking for you.” 

Mac’s words brushed a tripwire connected to one of their potentially volatile conversation topics. 

James shifted his weight. “Of course.” He said nodding again with two sharp jerks of his chin. 

Mac could have said something that lead them away from the time he had spent searching for his dad but instead he let the silence between them grow. The side of him that like to dip this bit of equipment into that chemical to see what would happen wanted to see what his dad would do. James’ gaze searched Mac’s face. Whatever he saw in his son’s expression prompting him to steer away from the difficult subject and he held up the mug he held in his hand. “Would you like a drink?” 

“Yes, that’s why I came in here, I thought some coffee would help…” Mac waved a finger round and round beside his temple. 

“Grease the mental wheels? That was my plan too.” 

James picked up a second mug and put it with his own on the counter, filling them both with coffee from the pot. He poured a splash of milk into his own and turned to Mac. 

“How do you…?” He frowned. He looked back at the coffee filled mugs. “I don’t know...” His voice was quiet. “I don’t know how you take your coffee.” 

Mac saw his father’s eyes lose focus as a tangle of emotions played across his face. His mouth pulled downwards and his expression crumpled as comprehension, sorrow and remorse chased across his features. 

Mac knew that Jack didn’t like coffee but drank mochas sometimes as a pick-me-up. He knew that Riley took her coffee with no milk and tiny bit of sugar in it to give a hint of sweetness to the strength of the beans. Leanna drank fruit teas, her favourite smelled like cherry flavoured bubble gum. Bozer liked coffee however it came, how much cream, sugar and syrup he choose to put in depended on his mood and Matty liked cappuccinos with cinnamon sprinkled on top and peppermint lattes at Christmas time. Jill had liked English Breakfast tea with milk and one sugar lump. 

“I like coffee with no milk and with one spoonful of sugar.” Mac looked away from his father, through the glass wall of the break room and over to the lab across the corridor. There was so much he and his dad didn’t know about each other, so much they had to learn. They didn’t just have deeply personal and potentially painful ground to cover, they needed to learn simple things about each other too. The things you knew about the people who were there in your life. Their favourites and their dislikes. The trivialities that you shared when you were a family. 

“Your mom took her coffee with no milk,” Mac turned back to his father when he spoke, “she liked it with two and a half sugars, that’s two and a half, not three or two, she could always tell the difference.” James was stirring sugar into Mac’s drink and Mac could see his face in profile, the pain in his expression replaced by the softness that always filled his eyes whenever he spoke about Mac’s mom. He cleared his throat, chasing a gruff burr from his voice. “She always said she liked it as dark as night, as hot as hell and as sweet as sin.” 

James turned to Mac and held out his drink, one side of his mouth turned up in a smile that Mac found he could return. They were at their most comfortable when they were talking about his mother. She was someone they had both loved and memories of her were something Mac shared with only his dad. Stories about her that he hadn’t heard before were precious and Mac hoarded every new detail his father told him, adding them to the hazy memories he already had to build a fuller, more real picture of the woman whose presence and absence had formed so much of who he was. 

“Here you go, son” James held out Mac’s drink and he reached out and took it, shifting it so that the heat didn’t burn his fingers. 

“Thank you.” 

“I’ll try to get to the lab later, to see how your science do-hickey is coming along, it would be good to get back into a workshop again.” 

“You know where we are.” Mac gestured to the lab behind him. He changed his grip on his mug, moving the handle carefully so he didn’t spill the coffee, trying to displace some of the nervous energy he felt arching between him and his father. The story about Mac’s mom had bonded them briefly through their joint affection for her and they weren’t used to sharing moments of connection. And connecting in a break room in the Phoenix, where James was acting in his role as Oversight and Mac was stood wearing a white lab coat while his best friends bickered with good natured affection just down the hallway added an extra surreal quality it. 

“Then maybe I’ll see you later.” James stepped around Mac to walk back to his office. He turned when he reached the doorway. “No milk and one sugar.” he gestured at the cup in Mac’s hand. “I’ll know for next time.” 

**Author's Note:**

> My mum has tea with milk and no sugar, she puts the milk in with the teabag which I find appalling but it’s what she likes so what can you do? (My mum likes mullets, she has some strange ideas about things) My sister like coffee with 2 sugars and milk, sometimes a glug of Bailey’s if the kids are in bed. I used to work with someone who said that she liked her tea the colour of a Greek beach at sunset which was very poetic but since I have never been to Greece was a bit lost on me. How people like their drink is one of those things you know about the people you spend a lot of time with, like how you can tell which member of your family is walking up the stairs by the sound of their footsteps. I figured those are things that Mac and James wouldn’t know about each other and in some ways discovering those gaps would be just as painful that the big, personal topics they had to discuss. 
> 
> I only know a tiny bit of French. I can remember how to say that my name is Eleanor and I am 11 years old (that was the first thing I learnt, it’s not overly useful now), that I would like a ham sandwich and that I have a headache from doing French at school. I can also say 'the monkey is in the tree' from watching stand-up comedian Eddie Izzard, but that’s it. I read that ‘Un ange passe’ is a French saying and remembered it because I liked it, I have googled it so I'm fairly confident that it does actually exist... 
> 
> The weird show on Netflix with the actor who was popular in the 80’s isn’t referring to any program in particular. I don’t have Netflix but I feel confident that there is something like that on there.
> 
> Mac’s thoughts at the beginning of the story are actually direct quotes from the movie Monster Trucks when Tripp is telling Meredith about the modifications he's made to his truck that will help Creech power it. It’s actually one of my favourite movements in the movie because Meredith responds with, “You’re not dumb,” and you can see in her eyes that Tripp has just become 1000% hotter because he’s smart as well as cute. I love Meredith. That whole movie gives me joy.


End file.
